Climbing Big Trees to Understand Them
Climbing Big Trees to Understand Them toggle caption Teresa Damron toggle caption Teresa Damron toggle caption Ketzel Levine, NPR toggle caption Scott Altenhoff toggle caption Nathaniel Sperry Most of us experience big trees with our necks craned and our eyes skyward as we gaze up into unimaginable terrain. Levine's guide is Scott Altenhoff, co-founder of the Pacific Tree Climbing Institute, "a man who can ID a conifer, blindfolded, by the smell of its sap," she says. But Altenhoff is concerned that an increased public interest in climbing may cause environmental damage, and climbers are encouraged to keep their feet off the trees as much as possible to minimize the impact. "One of my greatest fears is that this will become my own personal Frankenstein monster -- that I helped promote an activity that will turn into people loving trees to death, trampling the root systems or the fragile organisms within the canopy," Altenhoff says.
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